Chapter 10

Gaia is in danger.

That night, I took the journey to the City of Pride. The portal of the first fall was on the outskirts of that city, since Pride was the sin of which all other sins originated from.

I was numb. I couldn’t think about anything, and I didn’t allow myself to feel anything. If I let down my walls, I feared I wouldn’t have the strength to put them back up again.

I knew Gaia was suffering because of that. She had no support, nor strength of her own. Hell was wearing on her as well. I felt a distant sense of empathy for her, but I didn’t feel it strongly enough to do anything about it.

All I felt was nothingness.

* * * * * * *

Gaia’s P.O.V

I watched Azazel fly away toward the portal until finally he was a speck against the grey and red sky of hell, and then he was gone completely. I felt dread rip through my body; he was going to go through this horrible mission, and yet there would be no reward in the end. Only torment was waiting for him, and he knew it.

I also felt dread for clariana. She was being brought back to hell, and if I had heard everything between Azazel and Lucifer correctly, this time she would be brought back as a demon. All for the selfishness of two men. I knew there was a reason I hated men.

Clariana had never wanted that. It would be torture for her. She would be a demon for the rest of her existence.

What of me? I thought. What will become of me? How will I return to earth? And if I ever do, what then? How will I move on?

Then a knock at the door startled me out of my thoughts. I stood frozen, heart pounding in my ears, wondering if I should just pretend that I wasn’t home. But the more I realized that if it was a bad guy or a burglar, or whatever they had in hell, then they wouldn’t have been able to get through the heavy security.

The knock sounded again, and a voice accompanied it. “Gaia, it’s all right. I’m just the security guard for Azazel. He told me to check on you every now and then. Are you doing all right?” he asked. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to let me in, but please, at least answer me so I know you’re allright. If anthing were to happen to you, you probably already know I would have my a*s beat.”

I chuckled under my breath. Well, what kind of bad guy didn’t care about being let in or not? If he were truly a bad guy, he would be demanding me to let him in. And he sounded like he had a healthy fear of Azazel already, so he wouldn’t be dumb enough to hurt me.

Even after all that being said, though, I still didn’t feel comfortable  enough to let him in. “I’m fine,” I said. He sighed in relief, “that’s good.” He replied, sounding genuinely happy that I was ok. “If you have need of anything, I’ll just be right outside the doors.” After that, he stayed quiet.

****************************************************************************************************

Three days went by since the night Azazel had flown away. I spent most of my day eating and sleeping, with the occasional healing spell, thrown in for good measure.

Depression was wearing on me though. I was only surviving, and barely at that. I wasn’t living. There was no one to talk to. No earth or animals. Even the Goddess felt distant down here. And there wasn’t any hope for the future. If anything, I was scared of the future.

When was Azazel coming back? For all we knew, it could be anywhere from now until long after I was already dead from old age.

In any case, there was no happy ending to the story.

I was starting to get hungry again. I looked in the fridge; milk, a tiny bit of left over pancake mix that made me think of that day that now feels so long ago, water bottles, and one little stick of string cheese. No, I wasn’t going to die of old age. I was going to die from starvation.

I looked in the cupboards. There was a box of cereal, and of course bottles and bottles of absinthe. I rolled my eyes. Then I looked closer at the bottles. Did absinthe usually have a faint shimmering glow to it like that? The bottle said absinthe, but for some reason I thought it would look different. More dark.

This liquid was gold. Kind of like a nice glass of frothy beer, but not quite. Somehow it looked to be glowing with a warm light. It made me think of Clariana. I shook my head to clear it; what am I thinking? How would alcohol remind me of Clariana who is so innocent and would never touch alcohol in her life?

(722 words typed today. 945 left to go.)

I closed the cupboard and decided to ask Azazel’s guard for some more food.

I put on some clothes finally because yes, I was naked. I slept in the nude. Who didn’t?
As I was walking out the door, I felt a weird sensation, like something wasn’t entirely right. But I shrugged it off, I was in hell. Nothing was inherently good here.
Then I was walking through the outer doors, and finally standing outside of the building. Was it a house? Or a lair? What did they call it in hell?
Abbadon was not standing in his usual position. If he had been,  I would have been standing in the same space as him, and the laws of physics said that was impossible.
“abbadon?” I called. Maybe he was just stretching his legs, taking a little stroll. But when there was nothing but silence, I shivered.
I looked around, frantically running in circles trying to find Abbadon. This was not good. He wouldn’t just leave!
“Abbadon!” I cried out. I began walking. There was still hope that he was just stretching his legs. And then I stopped at the sight of the lump on the ground.
“No,” I whispered in dread. Then “nope, not happening.” I was going through denial. But once I saw that the lump on the ground was indeed Abbadon, there was no time for denial. A scream rose up in my throat like bile. If whoever had killed Abbadon was still here, I had to move. Fast.
I ran quickly but quietly back through the doors, making sure they were locked tight. I wish I could’ve put protective wards on the door, but I didn’t have time for that. Then I slowed when I realized that the main front door was wide open. I didn’t have time to ponder if I had left it open, or if the killer was here and had opened it themselves. It was too late for that. If the killer was here, I would die either way. At least I had a fifty-fifty chance staying inside.
And if I did die in here, at least I knew Azazel would see me right away, and he would avenge my death. If I died outside these walls, he’d never find my body, and he’d always wonder.
I walked through the door, heart hammering. I was probably walking to my death.

Author's Note

So now that it is NaNoWriMo, the uploads will be much more frequent.